Introduction and General Information (Read Me First!)

1. Introduction

This is an exhaustive, in-depth guide for Tryndamere that has been updated to standards made after the rage system update and is up to date as of September 9th, 2011.

This is also still a work-in-progress so don't be upset and downvote if you see partially completed chapters. So, please be patient as I'm well aware of it working on it. I'm also adding new content all the time which is a major reason for having some incomplete material.

Bushfight/Brushfight: In bottom and top lanes bushfights often refer to the fights that occur sometime around 0:00-2:30 but they refer to any combat that takes place inside the brush.

Early Game: Levels 1-11~

Mid Game: Level 11 until fighting takes place at or on the base platforms.

Late Game: The stretch of time between the end of Mid Game until 2 inhibitors have been taken down.

Critical Phase: Two Inhibitors or more down until End. Many games go back and forth between Late Game and Critical Phase.

Any non-title yellow text is cautionary and should be read. It has important tips, side notes, helpful hints, etc.

Any non-title red text is very cautionary and should be taken seriously.

Blue titles are guide sections.

Green titles are guide subsections.

Information on Tryndamere, Runes, Masteries, and Summoner Spells

1. Background information on Tryndamere

-Why Choose Trynd?-

Trynd is a straight Damage Per Second champion in LoL. His uses vary as a factor of the player, the teams, team composition, and skill. For my own situation, I generally use Trynd as a pressure pusher. I deeply enjoy pushing sidelanes while large-scale fights are going on in mid. (Very rarely does this result in me being the last man alive but it does indeed happen. If your team can't even somewhat hold a tower 4v5 then you have a problem either way because that signifies that at least one person's a feeder, and the other three are either inexperienced, underfed, have a poor item build, all three, or just aren't trying.) This distracts a sizeable portion of attention from the midlane fight so that the enemy team is forced to split up, often sending their star play after me to kill me. Which only works 1/3 times. The other times I get ganked in that fashion I either kill my intended killer, get away in time, or destroy my intended tower. Many times I do all three. I often help in teamfights if they happen in the nearby jungle but most often I act as a clean-up crew instead of trying to get into the heat of the fight. Jumping into a fight too early is probably the quickest way to get yourself killed because everyone hates Trynd; it's just a fact of life. This is especially true of CC-heavy teams.

Tryndamere is not for:

Constant teamfights
Defensive-stlye gameplay
Teams with more than two other AD-DPS
Late Game tower defense
Initiating large teamfights/ganks
Towerdiving (That is a big nono)
Facechecking
Scouting
Timid Players
Timid Play-styles
Indecisive Play-styles

As you can see, the benefits normally will vastly outweigh the risks. Trynd excels (or is at least decent) at about 70% of all roles and tasks in LoL. Now, there are certain things he does better than others so I wouldn't advise trying to be/do every single thing on the above list at once. But, I do suggest that you begin to broaden your view aspect of Tryndamere from just "That broken trash champ they're bound to nerf soon." to a multi-roled legitimate League champion.

Above all, know the limitations of your champion. No matter if it's Trynd or anyone else. Every champion and every player has his/her limits.

-Abilities-

Passive: Battle Fury

Tryndamere gains 5 Fury for striking a unit or 10 Fury for a critical strike, and 10 extra Fury for killing a unit.

+ Trynd is the single highest sustained-damage champion in the game, without question. This is, thanks in part, to both the nature of this build and his passive critical strike chance increase (unlike Ashe's failure of a passive). The only champions who come close to Trynd's damage output are: Master Yi (who most people build survivability AND damage), Mundo (who most people play as a tank instead), Ashe (who most people can't actually play very well), and Caitlyn (who doesn't have 100% critical chance most of the time).

+For a DPS champion he's very survivable with exactly 2225 hp at level 18 and a substantial amount of healing capacity.

-Cons-

-Trynd is susceptible to copious amounts of CC. (As are a fairly large majority of champions.)

-He has one of the most difficult starting game phases (the first 15 minutes) of any champion in LoL.

-His actual play-style and the play-style your teammates will want you to use is completely different. (Your teammates will want you in every single teamfight because of your astounding dps. But, you should only be in teamfights on cleanup duty or in fights where you outnumber you enemies.)

2. Explanation of Masteries

One thing that you are bound to hear often is that "Tryndamere needs a full critical chance rune page or he's absolute trash." I hear that all the time and I am well aware that people often achieve a starting critical bonus of around 50%. Please note that that is the single most thoughtless comment I have ever heard in regard to Tryndamere. I will give credit that having 50% critical strike chance with Trynd gives you an amazing advantage for the first half of the game over most champions. However, this build emphasizes the sacrifice of a slight amount of early game potential for the ability to consistently perform well across all laning and game phases. Please trust me when I say there are far more worthy things to spend your limited rune spaces on than pure critical strike chance. (You'll have over 100% crit chance at around 30:00 anyway so why not buff your damage instead?)

Your masteries do not have to look exactly like the ones I have. But one thing is for sure: You must have at least a majority of your mastery points in attack. Trynd's main purpose is to kill and provide sustainable damage, therefore, having a defensive or utility mastery will just get you into trouble (as will trying to build defensively) nine times out of ten. I personally went with maximizing damage and speed, then grabbing as much defense as i could possibly cram into the remaining spaces. Since you'll be farming minion kills like crazy early game you may want to pick up the very handy spec of 1-2 reduced minion damage which will really help your ability to overextend and get first blood in the first 5 minutes safely. So, once again, please try to emphasize attack over defense. But please remember some defense is a very good and helpful thing. Find your own balance.

3. Explanation of Runes

If you pay attention to nothing else in this section please pay attention to this: You do not need to have a full critical strike chance page. It wastes potential for some extremely helpful late game bonuses like critical damage, attack speed, armor penetration, and cooldown reduction, among others. I went with this particular set up of Attack Speed, Critical Strike Chance, and Armor Penetration because it is a massive boost to early game play yet still comes in handy during late game. The attack speed runes are there to make up for my prioritization of pure damage and critical chance in the early game build. The armor penetration runes are there for a nice buff of damage (especially against well-faring and often overconfident early game tanks like Nasus, Shen, and Rammus). The critical strike chance runes are there for a small but significant boost to critical strike in the early game. Notice how I said you do not need to have a full critical strike page, but you may in fact use a few runes slots for a small boost to it. You can feel free to replace this with armor penetration, critical damage, or whatever else you like if you do not want more critical strike chance. (I would recommend critical damage due to it being a percentage increase of actual damage done and it scales into real damage increase much faster than armor penetration.)

4. Explanation of Summoner Spells

Personally I almost always pick up Exhaust and Ignite. Exhaust combined with Mocking Shout demolishes an enemy's ability to fight back or run, thereby stranding them wherever they are. Ignite halves the ability for an enemy to heal himself which effectively makes him into a quick 300g when combined with the effects of Exhaust.

Ghost: This provides that little extra burst of speed that makes chasing down and hacking runners that much funnier.

Cleanse: For those who complain that CC breaks Trynd in half.

Clairvoyance: Map Awareness.

-Not-so-good spells for Trynd-

Heal: While hilarious to watch your enemies cry as you pop heal during an early (0:00-2:00) bushfight and get a double kill, this spell instantly becomes useless for Trynd the moment you obtain any lifesteal. Please do not waste a spell slot on this. See my note on Clarity to better understand my thoughts on this spell.

Fortify: It is not your job to carry this. Yell at your tank until he cries and submits or go without.

Clarity: "Wait, wut? Trynd has no mana you ****." Yes, this is true. However, it does have some merit if you're on an ap-heavy team. Notice I say some merit. This can actually be game-changing in teamfights that are initiated or continued after your Veigar's burnt off his mana farming minions or your Annie pressed "E" one too many times. Even though I caution Trynds to never be overly active in teamfights there are many times where you have to. Now, no one expects AD carries to carry clarity, and this makes you dangerous since you appear to be a first-time Trynd to the enemy team. Ergo, you'll run into this quite often: "Lolwut Trynd has Clarity let's rush him at level 1 trololololololo-- *dead*". The obvious drawback is that it wastes a spot for when you're solo farming and pushing so it'll be useless around 95% of the time. So, in my opinion, if you're a professional Trynd player do whatever the hell you feel like. But if you're new, semi-new, or kinda rusty, it's better to just stick with the recommended spells. A quick note on Clarity: Please note that carrying Clarity will only give your Mana-dependent teammates enough mana for one more quick burst of damage, if that, not enough to sustain prolonged fighting.

-Awful spells for Trynd-

Rally: Hahahahahaahaaaaaaa, moving on.

The Build and Skill Order

1. The Skill Structure

As far as Skill Order, most people need to get Q (Bloodlust) first because of the healing and significant damage bonus it comes with. However, if you want to make fun of your enemies, scout for those every so pesky stealth-n-gank champions, or just want to have that little edge of -20 enemy attack damage (making some champions hit in the twenties) in the first bushfight, you'll want to pick up W (Mocking Shout) first. It decreases the ability of an enemy to run away significantly and their ability to fight you. So, it screws them over one way or the other. And, the best part is that it's multi-targeted so it's perfect for 2v1 fights. For the ever-so-timid of young budding Tryndameres a single point in E (Spinning Slash) acts as on-demand blink that can get you out of serious trouble in a hurry. A quick note on Spinning Slash: You can be knocked up in the middle of spinning, thus interrupting the move and stunning you.

2. The Build

Ah yes, the all-important build. Personally, the only items I actually say that you truly need regardless of circumstance are the first four: Infinity Edge, Two Phantom Dancers, and something that builds out of the Vampyric Scepter. This is because if you have 2 Phantom Dancers and an Infinity Edge, your baseline damage has been established and all that is necessary is for you to decide how to build on that based on NEED. You should, at this point, sell your boots as they are now completely worthless because of your Phantom Dancers. Now, lets walk you through the base outline of the build:

You should start out with one of two options:

A. The standard Brawler's Gloves and 2 Health Potions for that perfect balance of damage and laning sustenance.

or

B. A Vampyric Sceptre for those who are skilled with Trynd and know how to initiate contact with minion waves while avoiding taking too much burst damage.

Now, as for your second item purchase: This is the biggest gap of not buying anything you should have all game, but it's entirely necessary. Do not deviate from this portion of the build. Immediately begin farming enough gold to buy a BF Sword. If you're being suppressed at your turret and can't farm enough to afford it then you should probably buy the Cloak of Agility first (+18% critical chance), farm, and THEN buy the BF Sword. You need this damage in order to farm well and build momentum into mid game. Too many times have I tried building for speed and critical chance first. Then I watch as level 11 Nasus tower dives me, kills my turret, then kills me because I just can't scratch him. However, there is not a single character that can feasibly tower dive (with the intention of killing your tower) at level 11 against a Trynd who already has a BF Sword and not sustain serious injuries. A quick note on the balance of speed and strength: If you're having a hard time moving around and your situation requires you to have more speed than you do at the moment, then what I personally do in this situation is go ahead and buy my Berserker Greaves after the initial BF Sword and CoA have been bought. However, normally I do not need to. If you find that you just aren't comfortable without your boots then by all means buy them at this point. But, please buy the BF Sword and CoA first. You simply need the damage as soon as you can buy it.

After you have bought your BF Sword and Cloak you can do one of many things: Buy a Vampyric Scepter, buy Berserker Greaves, or finish your Infinity Edge. The best thing to do is most often buy a Vampyric Scepter, buy the Boots of Speed, finish your Infinity Edge, then build the boots into Berserker Greaves. But, no matter the order, those three things need to be bought in quick succession to give you enough momentum. You then need to farm/gank/kill your way to 2 Phantom Dancers (going from Zeal to Cloak to Dagger to Phantom in that order most often is the best way to go about it, this ensures low amounts of money being dropped periodically rather than farming and dropping 2885 gold at a time). At this point you may, and should, sell your boots. Your Phantom Dancers provide more of a speed boost than the boots do anyway. Your inventory should now contain one Vampyric Sceptre, one Infinity Edge, and two Phantom Dancers.

This is the point where the rest of the build is completely up to you. Many people would suggest building at least 30% lifesteal so that you can survive Thornmail (if done with upgraded Bloodthirsters you begin healing through Thornmail). Many others would suggest copious amounts of Armor Penetration / Shred Damage (Stark's, Black Cleaver, Madred's Bloodrazor, etc). It really is dependent on your situation at the time. But whatever you do, do not simply buy something because your teammates tell you to. People are, 90% of the time, completely in the dark on what the right thing is to buy for anyone they aren't actually playing at the time.

Situational Build Advice

I'll try to describe a few enemy and ally scenarios to give you an idea of what you'll want to build and when:

1. You've been fed to hell and no one on their team is going to stop you, however, you're having problems getting anything greater than a triple kill before you die:

In this case, do the troll build. What is the troll build you ask? IPP + 2 Tiamats and 1 Bloodthirster (or Stark's Fervor). 2 Tiamats ensure 100% damage output in a splash radius around you and the Bloodthirster for survivability and damage. It is HILARIOUS to watch their tank try to tank you and cause his allies and minions go up in smoke. Great for dealing with gang-ups, ganks, overly-large minion waves, and jungle minions. This should also increase your survivability due to the fact that you can feasibly attack the entire enemy group at once. Therefore you eliminate squishies first and cause the tanks and survivors to scatter. You should be sitting on a decent 400-ish attack damage with 700-900 consistant crits when properly buffed (I constantly crit at over 1100 with my personal build).

2. You're the only one on your team doing well and they have some GOOD carries:

In this case, Trynd shines. IPP + at LEAST 1 Bloodthirster and whatever else you like, try to keep it to damage but there ARE some instances where Thornmail / Randuin's Omen is acceptable. The whole point is to be such a force that you kill whatever is trying to kill you first, and stacking lifesteal is a great way to do it. A character that is excellent at kiting should be dealt with with an overcompensation of lifesteal and speed (Ashe, Cait, Gangplank). So, Boots of Swiftness and 2 Bloodthirsters may do you well here to compensate for the enemy's speed and range of attack. The lifesteal is to heal through the damage you sustain. If you're dealing with two or more dps carries then you may want to scale back on building lifesteal + speed and just concentrate on pure damage output. The troll build may work really well here since lower ELO players tend to not pay attention to the proper distance they should be away from their teammates (thus killing unsuspecting clustered carries).

3. Your team is doing well but you just can't seem to get that one really survivable tank (Nasus, Rammus, Mundo) before he runs away and heals then defends his base:

This build is hilarity and since the only real problem is the tank, it's time for shred damage. You can go for either Wit's End or Madred's Bloodrazor. Do not try to build malady, it is completely worthless and will not help you as much as you need it to (20 straight magic damage versus 42 from wit's end and 4% of enemy maximum HP per strike with Bloodrazor). Personally I recommend getting both then finishing off with Stark's at this point. This is a wonderful combination that emphasizes speed, strength, and shred, along with some lifesteal; all of which are vital for tank killing.

4. Standard situation:

This build is what I try to complete when I'm in a game where all factors are balanced, no one person stands out other than me, and I have a need to be able to take down anyone I meet with reasonable certainty. IPP + Bloodthirster + Black Cleaver + (2nd Bloodthirster / Tiamat / Madred's / Stark's / Randuin's / Warmog's / Sunfire Cape / Thornmail). Each of these are circumstantial, please use your best judgement to try to tip the balance in your favor. If your only concern is pushing harder, then I recommend Tiamat. If your only concern is that you can't push hard enough in one go then I suggest Sunfire or a second Bloodthirster. There are millions of situations you can run into. Just use your best guess at what you need and remember you can always sell something you don't need.

Bottom Lane Gameplay

This is the part you probably came here to read, the actual gameplay advice. And for bottom lane, Trynd's home field:

1. Early Game

Believe it or not, a well-prepared and experienced Trynd actually owns the early game phase. The biggest complaint about Trynd is his susceptibility to exhaust and other forms of CC and his early game. This build, if followed correctly, actually helps you become one of the most annoying early game melee champions out there. You want to start off with your brawler's gloves and 2 health potions normally (especially in ranked play). however, if you're playing a normal or custom game and willing to take risks, a Vampyric Scepter is trolololol. The Brawler's Gloves give +8% to your critical chance which is actually quite a massive boost. This, combined with your runes and masteries should give you roughly a 1/6 chance of landing a critical hit which increases to a little under 1/2 or so when at full rage. For the first several minutes you need to just farm and attempt to zone any melee enemies, do not try to zone rangers because they can and will knock you on your ***, especially Cait. I hate Cait.

-Champions that lane perfectly with Trynd-

Amumu: The on-demand CC is amazing for initiating fights. Combining your Mocking Shout and Exhaust with Amumu's Bandage Toss, Tears, and ultimate make for extreme burst damage. His range is a bit longer than yours though so make sure that he understands you can't get to the fight as quickly as he can. Overall I think the point here is that Amumu will generally take 80% of the hits and be your duo's frontman (the one at the front of the minion wave) while you pick off stragglers near the back and work your way forward. If Amumu initiates, try to keep up with him with your E-W combo so that he doesn't stick himself out for nothing.

Blitzcrank: One of the best initiator's with his Pull and Knock-up. This is almost a death sentence if done within your tower's range. But what I really like about blitz is that he's one of the few champions that can't farm extremely well and sets up his partner with golden kill opportunities out of nowhere. I highly recommend this duo.

Cho'Gath: This can turn out to be good or bad depending on if Cho tanks or goes AP. AP'gath will farm better than you do at certain points making laning together kind of a chore. But Tank'gath generally won't be farming much of anything until mid game and probably won't mind you taking up most of the farm kills. Make sure Cho spams his knock-up and silence so that you can dive in for the kill.

Galio: Laning with Galio is the same concept as laning with Cho'Gath. It can go either way depending on if he's Tanking or going AP. Tank Galio is a wonderful support tank for you because he can shield you and provide a bit of cover damage. The speed buff of his Gust ability really helps when you're trying to get to that one guy who's just barely faster than you and barely gets away with like 2 HP. When Galio activates his ultimate try to leave any DPS attacking him alone unless they have a large percentage of health left. If they have 20% or below they'll just kill themselves because Galio's return damage factor scales with how much he gets hit. Try to focus on the other guy and let Galio finish the DPS off, but tossing in a W and Exhaust tag to help Galio ensure a kill would be kind of you.

Janna: The single best partner you can ask for. Her shield protects you, her passive gives you speed, her shield gives you damage, her gust both knocks up and gives an opportunity for you to launch yourself with your E to get an easy kill, her ultimate heals you and gives you a buffer zone if you over-commit. And she doesn't farm well early game. There is no downside here. Just make sure she shields you whenever you go out in front. Some Jannas are horrible about that.

Jarvin: Jarvin is like a coiled snake. He can play it cool and take some damage from the enemy while just farming, and without warning damage and knock-up an opponent as you spring from the bushes. This combination is absolutely wonderful when dealing with squishy DPS that aren't packing Flash or a natural Blink/Leap ability. Remember that you CAN spin into Jarvin's ultimate from the outside and deal damage while they're trapped.

Karma: Healing and a very large shield is always a plus. Probably the best thing about laning with Karma is that you'll have a speed buff on you quite often which makes chasing down an enemy so much easier. Really good Karmas can keep you in a lane without needing to back for health.

Leona: Can't farm and can CC the hell out of anything. This creates so many opportunities for early game kills that if you aren't generating kills something is definitely wrong. Leona tends to just eat away at the enemy's health even without you around, so make good use of the constant stuns and slows by following up with your own CC and damage combo.

Malphite: I love Malphite's Q. It's probably one of my favorite non-ultimate skills in the game. Its relatively low mana cost, significant spammable damage, and speed buff-debuff combination make it perfect for laning with Trynd. You can easily sit back and farm while keeping an eye out for your opportunity to finish an opponent which saves you health, gold, and time. Combine this with his ultimate and natural tanking aptitude and suddenly level 6 tower dives are possible. Personally I suggest having Malph ultimate, ground slam, and slow any runners as you dive for the kills. This duo functions beautifully and is one of my most recommended.

Maokai: Scouting ability and on demand snare almost guarantee that you can't get zoned out of your lane.

Orianna: Nice support with a shield, scout, and speed boost ability.

Rammus: The on-demand mini-stun and slow combined with an automatic Thornmail creates several opportunities for a quick and decisive Trynd.

Singed: I like this combination so much for two reasons: 1. Most good Singed's will grab a Rylai's which allows YOU to chase so much faster due to the enemy's decreased speed. And 2. His toss and adhesive combo create golden opportunities for early game kills out of nowhere.

Soraka: Basic Heal and support. The armor and magic resist buffs and debuffs are NICE.

Taric: Stun + Infinite Heal + Attack Damage bonus = Epic.

Yorick: On-demand slow and extremely high burst damage potential mean that he can zone the enemy while you farm, and his natural lifesteal makes it that much easier. The ultimate is very nice for those times when you ALMOST killed them, then you come back and they ALMOST got away. Don't forget to not let up on the damage, there is NO reason to run once you've died and come back.

5. Thou shalt pay attention to nearby gank-brush to avoid being raped by Master Yi coming out of the jungle with Alpha Strike or Xin with his press-3-buttons-and-win-the-whole-damn-game attack combination.

10. Thou shalt pop thine ultimate often and as needed, for it hath a lower cooldown than thou expectest. Thou shalt NOT be anal retentive and try to "save my ultimate for when I need it" for that leadeth thee down the path of the dumbass.

12. Thou shalt NOT use thine ultimate for the lowly task of tower-diving. In essence, be thou not a douchebag, for thine ultimate lasteth not long enough for it anyway.

For the rest of us:

Don't be the dumbass Trynd who goes "Trololol watch Veigar give first blood as I go and solo facecheck the bushes." For I indeed have been that very dumbass. Exhaust does NOT agree with Trynd very well.

DO NOT BLOODY POP YOUR HEALTH POTIONS BECAUSE SOMEONE LIGHTLY SCRATCHES YOU. 90% of the reason you have health potions is for one purpose and one purpose only: to regen enough hp in the case that you are pressed against your tower with low HP and the enemy is trying to zone you while hitting your tower. You may then consume a SINGLE Health Potion so that you can repel them and continue farming and holding your turret.

Don't get overconfident.

Don't be underconfident. Trynd hits harder than you think, and quite consistently.

Do NOT think you're bloody Rambo just because you hit level 6. That's a dumbass move and your team will HATE you.

Do not concentrate so heavily on pushing and harassing that you forget to check your peripherals in case of a jungle gank.

Do not use your ultimate for tower diving, it does NOT last long enough especially at level 6. Trust me, I know this from personal experience, I make it out alive like 20% of the time.

General Combat Tip:

When you start a fight, do it with your E. The initial damage and the fact that you're constantly spinning around kinda confuses and scares the enemy. Wait for around 1-2 seconds (while attacking your enemy of course) then try to get to your enemy's back (with E if you've landed enough critical hits enough to refresh the cooldown) and use your W. This further scares them and now they should be trying to get back to a safe place to either range you or just get the hell away, unless they're just really, REALLY stupid. This is the time to hit exhaust and ignite which will do one of two things: instantly cause them to pop flash in which case you simply spin up to them and continue slashing, or guarantee you a kill with about 80% certainty. You can also pop exhaust near the beginning of the fight to guarantee significant damage but not so much guarantee a kill. (Which is what I do. I actually make more money off of farming than our most fed player does off of actually killing people nine times out of ten.) This is extremely useful when you just want some time to force them to back, take their time to heal, get back to the fight late. This costs them levels and money and gives you an accelerated farming pace.

2. Mid Game

Mid Game is complicated for Trynd since you can feasibly go one of many ways. You can decide you don't like farming and laning and try to get enough kills to support your build costs whilst side-jungling for buffs, exp, and gold. Or you could also just keep laning and give your teammates an advantage. This particular route is what I tend to do, however, it is VERY risky.

The Advantages

1. At least one person from the other team has to constantly baby-sit you in order to keep you from pushing all the way to their base.

2. Since you're being babysat the 4v4 teamfights can quite easily go in favor of your team as the enemy team is distracted (they WILL become concerned with you if their babysitter can't handle you at the rate you're pushing and farming minions, thus distracting the rest of them from the teamfights.)

4. The lane you pick will probably become the furthest pushed lane on your enemy's side.

5. The enemy will almost always be one man short (a solo-farming Tryndamere CAN NOT be left to a single person unless that person is either uber fed or vastly more experienced than you) quickly making those 4v4 teamfights into 4v3 teamfights.

The Drawbacks

1. You're leaving your teammates to pick up the "slack" you cause. Many people at low elo are very skiddish, very rigid, and very inexperienced. They're used to 5v5 teamfights at 22:00 on the dot and are completely lost when anyone deviates from the "proper" way to play a 5v5 Summoner's Rift match. Most will start to whine because "Trynd is never in a teamfight so that's why we're losing." The truth of the matter is: Trynd sucks *** in teamfights until the very end when your they happen in one or both base platforms. Therefore you need to stay away from teamfights and push the side lanes instead. Don't panic if your team starts losing turrets as long as you are getting at least a couple turret kills as well. The best part of my recommended build? You're faster than everyone due to your Phantom Dancer's massive speed boost. So, you can easily push a lane and get the hell out of there before the ganksquad comes and tries to oust you. It'll take a while to figure out how far you can push your luck and get away alive.

2. You will get ganked, you will get ganked often, and you will die a few times. Unless someone on your team who's packing Clairvoyance really, REALLY likes you and tries to support your efforts for the team, you're more than likely going to fall for a gank or five. It's inevitable but as long as you get turret kills it's worth the sacrifice. Just try not to feed. (You're wanting to stay at around [#Deaths = #Kills + (1/2 #Assists) +2] or better. This means that if you add half the number of assists you have to your number of kills your death count will be no more than 2 higher than that number.) The best part of solo-pushing is that while you're level 18, you'll be getting ganked by level 14's. Make me proud and take down at least one.

3. You are overextended 80% of the time. This ties in with drawback #2.

4. Since your teammates are most likely fighting 4v4's constantly, most of the pressure to bring the game to critical point (taking down 1-2 enemy inhibitors) is on you.

3. Late Game

Alright, so, I define late game as the point where the fights begin to happen on or very near one or both of the team's base platforms (The inhibitor turrets). Your build should be VERY advanced and your level should be no lower than 15 if it isn't already 18. This should be the quickest phase of the game if you know your stuff. This should also be the point where you begin to OCCASIONALLY participate in teamfights. Your one and only task is to kill (or assist) 2 people on the enemy team. After you've achieved that go right back to solo pushing unless you have a clear opportunity for further kills or your team is at a disadvantage (You killed 2 of their people but you're one of only 2 on your own team that are still alive. If this is the case or a similar case, just use your best judgement). Your minion farm count should be well over 170 if it isn't over 230 at this point. Your only priority from here on out is taking out the enemy inhibitor turrets. If your build is 100% complete and you have at least ~22% lifesteal you may solo Baron. Although, I highly recommend a Black Cleaver if you're going to do that (You'll be criting 200-400ish instead of possibly 900 with the correct amount of crit damage, attack damage, and armor penetration. This is part of the reason I stress getting late-game damage boosting runes and masteries instead of just critical chance so much). Once you have taken down 2 inhibitors the game transitions into Critical game phase.

4. Critical Phase

You're so close to winning. So what do you do now? Push, push like ****, and don't stop pushing. You'll want to spend almost equal amounts of time pushing with your teammates as a group and taking down Inhibitors and Turrets on your own. It's advisable to have your teammates distract the enemy team by pretending to push down the Nexus Turrets while you take down the third Inhibitor Turret and Inhibitor yourself. Once this is achieved it's entirely up to you, I love to Rambo it at this point. You have so much speed and strength you can easily take down an inhibitor turret alone and if you're pushing with two other people you can decimate both turrets in seconds. At this point it is completely fine to waste your ultimate on getting the last few hits on a turret for the sake of TAKING IT DOWN, NOT for causing damage. Remember that those towers regenerate HP. When you when, make sure to type /d (and Enter) into the chatbox. Nothing's more humiliating than losing to a dancing man in a kilt.

Top Lane Gameplay

This is the lane you really don't want to be in. But, sometimes it can't be helped. Please, for your own sake, try to get into bottom lane before someone takes your spot. The reason you really don't want to be here is because this is where the really strong solo laners and the team's ranged carries go to train. Here you're almost instantly guaranteed a disadvantage.

(Will be worked on in the next version, sorry to those who were actually hoping to read this. This is placeholder text until I can work on it later but I need to publish a lot of other changes with THIS version.)

Mid Lane Gameplay

Yes, Trynd being a mid is hilarious, but it can be done. And it can be done very, very well if you know what to look out for, what to build, and when to build it.

Just for starters, let's talk about what Trynd can and can not do in mid.

Trynd's chances of successfully solo laning (on a 1-100 scale, 100 being perfect shut-out in your favor, 1 being completely shut out yourself) against the following champions are especially low. Many can be done, many shouldn't be done, and many simply can't be done unless your enemy doesn't know their champion very well.

(Note: The following is specified as tips for dealing with these champions in mid, but can also be referred to for any 1v1 interaction in any lane.)

Low Probability of Successful Laning Phase

Ashe (40) - The simple reason for this is that Ashe can simply kite you. And she will, all day, every day, until she has no mana left. Her ability to harass you is fairly high but you have a chance if she's a "Volley" spammer. Her mana pool will always be low, and her damage output early game is laughable. All in all, I'd give it a shot, but don't try to be a hero. You have a significant chance here so play it safe, farm, buy your lifesteal EARLY, and just wait for an opportunity.

Brand (30) - Brand is made specifically to keep his enemies at bay and harass them from a distance whilst expending like no mana. Seriously, does anyone else see this guy at no mana once he's level 7 or so? Because I never do. Brand has this really annoying way of tagging you with his on-click damage spell that you can't avoid / catching you in his AOE flamepool, then flashing to you and hitting you with every spell he has left, which includes his Q which stuns if it connects while his passive is active on you. (On spell connect you take 2% damage per second for like 4 seconds.) Avoid getting hit by his flamepool with your E which severely interrupts his combo and his rhythm.

Cait (15) - I despise Cait. Cait is one of those champions who start off overpowered, have an overpowered mid game, then shoots you in the face late game. Cait has this annoying way of always having enough mana for one more spell, no matter what she needs. Her Q keeps you at bay (but is easily avoidable); her Yordle Snap Trap is annoying as fax because once you step on it she automatically comes at you and shoots you at least once, normally twice; and when you actually start to close ground and get close enough to harass her, she just pops her E and you're back in her shooting range again. Her ultimate... I hate her ultimate, it's one of those annoying I'm-going-to-be-a-complete-coward-and-use-my-one-shot-burst-ult-on-you-from-alllllllll-the-way-over-here kind of ults. She uses it when she goes back to base, she uses it for cheap damage on you, and she uses it to kill you. The best way of dealing with Cait is just build up enough damage and lifesteal to be able to fight in her face. Cait hates when people stand to her, she automatically tries to get back out of the fire because she knows that she's too damn squishy. Just get up in her face, beware of her laying Snap Traps around you, then try to finish her quickly. She WILL try to hit E to get out of range, so having your Berserker Greaves a bit early might help here.

Corki (20) - Corki is simple, elegant, and annoying. He's got the perfect range of harassment, can lower your armor, and more often than not aims at you instead of the minion waves. His ult has so many stored charges it's insane, and his get-away-scott-free move is almost laughably spammable. The quick lesson on killing Corki is once again getting up in his face, he doesn't have a lot of damage early game like you do, so he'll at least attempt to play it safe. He'll also be counting on you being a timid lane fighter since you're melee and thus at an automatic disadvantage. Don't be timid. Be extremely volatile. And most importantly, be decisive in what you do. If you're going to farm, make sure he understands those are YOUR minions, this is YOUR lane, and he's just an unwelcome guest. If you're going to go for the kill, do not back off easily. But don't be a moron Trynd that thinks your ultimate guarantees you a kill.

Jax (50) - Oh Jax, the loveable one-shot-kill master of weaponry. This time you have less of a disadvantage, this one's melee just like you, and slow as hell from level 1-5. Take the early opportunities at levels 1-3 to make him very unwelcome and set the tone for the rest of the match. Spin in, Mocking Shout, 1-4 hits, spin/run out. You'll use your health potions quicker but it'll make him less likely to constantly jump at you. And if he becomes fond of using his Leap Strike, Mocking Shout and slice him until MS's effect wears off. It deters frontal attacks like no other skill in League. Be wary of his extremely high dodge chance. It will mess you up but is quickly countered with Sword of the Divine.

Leblanc (20) - The simple truth is that Leblanc is crazy good at dealing with champions like Trynd, her ability to silence, range spellcast, and close the gap quickly makes her like trying to hit the wind. She'll always try to keep a healthy distance from you but your advantage here is that if you manage to get close E then hit W, you'll burn through her mana pool quickly (because she'll almost always try to run, often using her blink ability) whilst also causing significant damage to her. (Remember, start a fight with E, then hit W to deter your opponent from staying close to you, giving you room to disengage in the other direction or pursue.) The key here is getting lucky with your crits whilst keeping her mana pool low. Once/if she builds Tear, you'll have a very difficult time in this lane. Hopefully people will gank her if you need it.

Miss Fortune (20) - Miss Fortune is my second least favorite champion to face in any lane, let alone mid. She has this nasty habit of picking up impure shots and stacking damage on you because all she'll want to be doing is hit you. She won't care about minions 75% of the time, she'll just want to zone you. However, if you can spin to and hit her to interrupt her passive, then W her, she'll run scared, and will rarely stand and fight. That is your only obvious advantage here. You simply have more damage output.

Nasus (5) - Nasus is a beast. It's just a fact of life. Trynd has the same probability of successfully dominating a Nasus that Mundo has of writing the next great American novel. Let's take this one step at a time:

1. Nasus' Passive is natural lifesteal that increases with level.

2. Nasus' Q gains power with everything he kills. The plus side to this is that he must spam this ability on minions early game, not you. If he spams this ability on you instead, count your blessings because more likely than not: he doesn't know what he's doing.

3. Nasus' W slows both your movement speed and attack speed and it gets worse as time passes. Start by running away then spin away during the second half of the debuff duration. Don't do the opposite; you won't get as far and this creates an opportunity for Nasus to harass you.

4. Nasus' E damages everything that stands on it at activation then deals damage over time. You can get away with standing on this more often than not, just be careful about the initial damage because it is VERY large.

5. Nasus' Ultimate makes everything about him better. I'd highly suggest reading the actual in-game description of it to better understand it. But basically it gives him bonus attack damage, heals him, gives him a higher amount of maximum HP, and a host of other effects. When he activates it, just back off till it wears off.

Nocturne (20) Oh, my. I really hate laning against Nocturne for two reasons. One: His lifesteal out-of-the-blue AOE passive. All of a sudden he'll perform an AOE attack every so often which damages anything in front of him and heals him. Two: Once he gets his spell shield he has instant immunity to your Mocking Shout for the duration of the shield, and you get eaten alive by his passive attack speed. Just try to keep up with him the best you can. His fear is annoying as hell and makes for difficult 1v1 combat so E is going to be vastly important to you at this point. Try to break the fear chain before it activates by spinning away then run back at him for a couple hits. Try to goad him into your minion wave so your minions will support you (although periodically healing him). It's better to have the coverfire than have nothing supporting you. You need all the help you can get at this point.

Nunu (50) - Out of all the annoying champions in this list, I'd prefer to lane against either a Nunu or an Ashe. Nunu is really annoying and can heal himself quite well, but the thing is: you do more damage, you heal more, and you hit more often. Nunu can spam his Ice Ball quite often however, putting you at a disadvantage as far as speed, and it just hurts. So be careful if he starts building HP. All in all just harass until he's forced to back, no big deal.

Ryze (35) - I swear half the Riot staff were high when they had the meeting that made Ryze's Rune Prison actual cooldown as low as like 4 seconds. There's no way to get close to this dude and not get blown up. A good Ryze will freeze you in place and burst your *** to hell. However, he's one of the squishiest mid champions in the game. This means that you want to keep doing the same thing: get close, do a couple hits, then run.

Swain (30) - Swain is excellent at keeping you at bay whilst bursting you down in a few combos. Swain definitely has a large advantage over you here. However, if you can take out the minions that support him and then begin attacking him, you can definitely keep pace with him as far as damage dealt. When laning against Swain you'll need lifesteal very early if you want to continue to survive. Try to keep in mind that he has several tricks up his sleeve. Avoid his snare with your E.

Teemo (25) - There are four clear reasons why your ability to lane against Teemo is so low. 1. His blind. 2. His passive poison ability. 3. He's ranged. and 4. He often builds some sort of slow item (Rylai's or Frozen Mallet). There's really no obvious way to counter a good Teemo to be honest. Just trying to kill him early might serve you well if you pop your health potions early enough. His blind won't last long enough to put you at a truly significant disadvantage if he gets that ability first (He'll probably have four bars of health and hits much lighter than you do.) At level 1 I suggest being really aggressive to scare him into farming more than harassing you. If you choose to be timid here he'll pick up on that as a sign that you aren't going to try to deal with him directly, in which case he'll start harassing you like crazy if he's any good.

Vayne (10) - It's not worth it bro. It's just not worth it. Her knockback ensures that you never get too close, her leap ensures that if you DO get too close she can increase the gap then hit you with a 3 shot combo, her passive increases he damage on you with every third shot, and her ult makes her beast-like with the ability to stealth at will. On top of all this, she's ranged. This is almost unwinnable, but I suppose the strategy here is teamwork. Find someone with a stun or knock-up(Amumu and Xin would work best) that is willing to help you by ganking her. You CAN cause significant damage or kill her together, it's just really tough. Just hope she has no idea what she's doing or find another lane.

Vlad (15) - So broken. He can heal up any damage you cause and get away any time you're about to kill him by becoming untargetable. He will constantly spam his Q on you once he gets it to level 3. But the good thing is that he doesn't have much CC; at least not CC that's very effective on Trynd. If you can close the gap between you and him and open up some damage on him he'll probably run away using his pool which damages him for a significant amount of health. Aggressiveness works surprisingly well here.

Zilean (40) - Oh my, facing Zilean. The single most annoying thing he'll do is his slow-bomb-cd refresh-bomb combo. And it will work very effectively on you. However, he can't keep that up forever. Wait till he inevitably runs out of mana as you farm and watch his health then wait for the perfect time to hit him. He's most vulnerable during the early levels (1-3) so hurt him while you can. If you farm well enough and get some lifesteal you should be fine.

Moderate Probability of Successful Laning Phase

TBR

High Probability of Successful Laning Phase

Summary

As a recap, let's go over what we learned:

1. Tryndamere's purpose is damage, not survivability.
2. Trynd's ult does not make you immortal, it's a time extension.
3. If you act like an idiot, you will feed, and you will get reported.
4. If you go out alone, prepare to die a few times for the sake of winning the game.
5. People WILL call you a moron for using this play-style, but it has won me more games than I can count.
6. PEOPLE WILL NOT PUSH. Please keep this piece of wisdom with you. Lower and even Middle elo players just do not push, they try to be overly cautious and end up taking too much time which can ultimately lose you the game.
7. Your job is to push and provide damage where and when needed. This includes finishing teamfights and helping with Dragon and Baron.
8. Even though your job is very clear-cut, situations are not. Go with your gut, not with a guide.
9. Support your teammates when the situation requires it.
10. Everything this guide says is arbitrary. There will be times that you're required to build a Frozen Mallet to stop that *%^*&%^*(@^#$*(#@&$^&^%@&*#^@!# Gangplank. There will be times you will be required to sell a Phantom Dancer for Thornmail. There will be times where your entire game is spent in mid helping your teammates drive off a really good enemy team. Once again, go with your gut, not a guide.

Random Tips that help TONS:

1. Rabadon's Cap is effing beastly on Trynd. Press your Q when you have full rage and watch the hilarity. Broken healing ratios are broken.

2. Frozen Mallet is the ONE and ONLY defensive item I fully support you in buying if you're more of a natural killer than a natural farmer. This, combined with Exhaust and Mocking Shout, guarantees that your enemy's movement speed is now in the 100's.

3. A 4 Tiamat, 1 IE, and 1 BT build will allow you to chop away at a tank and justify it. You're doing 200% splash damage with 1/2 strikes being critical. 3 hits on their tank will slice Veigar in half. Just remember that now you have no speed (Elixir of Agility will help you tons)

4. To be added.

Revision Information and Feedback

Version and Revision Information

Current Version 1.01

1.00: First Version
1.01: Fixed a ****load of spelling, grammar, and gameplay errors. Thanks to all who posted.
1.02: Further corrections and Expansions and revised the recommended build order.

Copyright Information

Don't steal my stuff.

Concerning Feedback

Please tell me things that I did wrong. This is my first guide so any truly constructive criticism will be more than welcome, but do so in a respectful manner. "You moron you spelled dumbass wrong" is not helpful. "You have a slight spelling error in chapter x and you spell the misspelled word like this:" is helpful. For those of you who are REALLY slow: "You dumbass that build is awful," is not helpful. "You dumbass that piece of advice is awful because..." is helpful, but I'll still ignore you. "Excuse me, but in my experience I've found that this works much better than your piece of advice in Chapter x Paragraph x." Is helpful and I will greatly appreciate it.

If this guide is too vague in certain parts please tell me so that I can elaborate. This also extends to parts that are just plain WRONG. (I noticed that I accidentally had put 6 skill points into Mocking Shout and only 2 points in my ultimate, please point stuff like that out to me.)

"This guide sucks"
"You suck"
"Trynd sucks"
"You need a ****ing full crit page you ****"
"Your guide isn't colorful and has no images"
"I blame you for all the gameplay mistakes I make"
and my personal favorite
"You stole this guide from lkfhyqw873ttgq34rblfy"

In response to that last bit, since I know someone's going to say it. I have not read ANY Tryndamere guides (at least not in my recent memory) on Mobafire since I don't even want to give room to the very suggestion that I plagiarized any part of this document. I wrote this on my own time of my own free will to help people better understand one of the most misused and misunderstood champions in LoL.

Positive Confirmation from Guide Users:

Special Thanks

TheUnusualOne

Random Stuff

This guide is meant to be completely exhaustive and will be expanded over time as I find the time to do so. Do not thumbs down the guide for not having things like images, colours, BBcode, etc. Right now I'm focusing on just the content.

Planned Additions

Tankamere
Troll Build Variants
Jungling
AP/CDmere

Conclusion

One quick note: I'm looking for people that main Tryndamere to give me feedback and also to help me plan a jungling section of the guide. I do not jungle and I don't even know how to jungle with any character, it's just not my style. So any help, support, or advice would be appreciated.

Thanks for reading and may your right arm become a lot stronger than your left arm.

League of Legends is a team based, real time strategy game set in a mythical world of swords & magic where epic battles decide the fate of mystical nations. Game players take on the role of a Summoner who conjures and controls champions to fight for them at the Institute of War. During game play champions gain experience and items to enhance their skills and abilities. How players develop and play their champions can be the difference between a crushing defeat or a glorious victory!